If you take Robert Eggers wonderfully evocative horror The VVitch and collide it with Jennifer Kent’s captivating character study of mental illness in The Babadook, you will get William McGregor’s frantically profound gothic horror Gwen. McGregor’s directorial debut is a feature development of his short film Who’s Afraid of the Water Sprite? released in 2009. Gwen follows the titular character, played by Eleanor Worthington-Cox, who lives with her ferocious and overly protective mother Elen (Maxine Peake) and little sister Mari (Jodie Innes). They live a difficult farm life in the Welsh highlands. Mysterious and strange events begin to brew with damaging results as they wait for their father to return from war in 1821.
Gwen is undoubtedly taking inspiration with the new range of slow, methodical character studies and psychological horrors that have recently gained critical acclaim. William McGregor’s film is a terrific embodiment of moral terror. The film plays with its audience’s expectations in how it displays and executes genre convention with wonderfully coy and captivating results.
Terrific Embodiment of Moral Terror
The production design by Laura Ellis Cricks is exceptional. The eerie intensity it inhabits is genuinely captivating on a cinema screen. The glib atmosphere is brought alive with a tremendous damp and dreary power that creates an evocative output of utter dread. Everything is cold and clammy, and it perfectly embodies the tone that McGregor sets out to deliver. The cinematography by Adam Etherington captures the bleak eeriness of the setting perfectly. Close-ups engulf the intensity of the small family dynamics in their quaint farmhouse, opening up a louder and larger world within civilian life near the Quarry. The film utilises subtle camera decisions that craft a more subconscious experience.
The aesthetic never slows or gives up throughout, as if it fails to remember what it is. It isn’t sadistic, but Gwen never lets the audience rest with the chills or visually hard-hitting sequences. The film flourishes with how it delivers its alluring and unexpected scares.
Delivers Alluring and Unexpected Scares
Maxine Peake once again crafts a formidable performance. From her performance in last year’s Funny Cow to her performance as Elen, mother to Gwen. She inhabits a level of range and skill that is nothing short of masterful. Peake takes a backseat as a secondary character and it’s the central performance of youngster Eleanor Worthington-Cox, playing the titular character who takes centre stage. However, Peake’s performance still manages be a strong presence throughout, frightening every bone in your body. The story, specifically the writing from director William McGregor, serves her arc correctly and crafts a poignant account of mental illness that evokes anything but exploitation.
Eleanor Worthington-Cox is magnificent as the titular character Gwen. Going against the energy and power that Peake brings to her respective role puts an incredibly tricky task upon Worthington-Cox, yet she succeeds in crafting an emotionally resonating and powerful performance. The nightmarish narrative that Gwen is surrounded by is only realised due to the captivating and engaging performance Worthington-Cox brings to the proceedings. She is naturally crafting her character with layered humanity. Without such talent, the film wouldn’t work as effectively.
Gwen: Conclusion
Gwen is an effective and daunting horror that engulfs its audience with perfect production design and cinematography that throw you into the eerie and frightening Welsh highlands and force you to survive in the mysticism that surrounds this family. The performances are as close to perfect as you’ll find in a horror today, in particularly that of Maxine Peake who evokes Toni Collette’s in Hereditary, dare I say Peake is even better. Hopefully she will receive the same plaudits for putting forth such an incredible performance.
Have you seen Gwen? Does it stand well with other masterful horror such as The VVitch and Hereditary? Make sure to comment your thoughts below.
Gwen had its worldwide premiere at TIFF in 2018 and was released in UK theaters on July 19th, 2019, with a US release on the 16th of August.
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